MPEG audio

MPEG stands for Motion Picture Experts Group. It's a standard for compressing video and audio. This page is only concerned with the audio part.

sound quality

• Very good compression and sound quality - online demonstration
• Uses perceptual encoding

visuals

• The user sees whatever user-interface their MPEG player displays.
• Some players are pretty elaborate, with graphic equalizers, oscilloscope displays, and playlists.
• It's kind of cool that a user can make a playlist of MPEG files (including your clip) that they can listen to anytime whether online or not.

browser issues

Browser requires some sort of MPEG-3 player application.

• For Power Macintosh and Windows 95/98/NT, I heartily recommend using Apple's Quicktime 4. Apple gives this Netscape/IE plugin away for free. When you install it it automatically configures your browser to use it. The big advantage is it pseudo-streams: You can listen to as much audio as has been downloaded without having to wait for the whole file to download.
• My favorite player for Power Macintosh is MacAmp
• My favorite player for Windows 95/98/NT is Sonique
• For (mostly free) MPEG players, it's hard to beat MP3.COM
• MPEG.ORG is also good
• You can also try Natural Elements Records
• You can also try Phade Software

Configuring Netscape Navigator or Communicator:

The easiest way to set up Netscape to use your chosen MPEG player is to try clicking on a link to an MPEG file. If you don't yet have an MPEG player set up, a dialog box will pop up saying Nescape doesn't know how to handle a file of a given mime-type and asking what to do. Click on the Select App button select the MPEG player application from the folder in which it's installed.

If the dialog box described above doesn't come up, or if you want to change the MPEG player, you'll have to do it in the Preferences dialog:

1. Select Preferences from the Edit menu and select the Applications tab/list item.
2. Highlight the audio/mpeg or MPEG Audio item
3. Click the Edit button.
4. In the dialog that pops up, set that the type should be handled by an Application
5. Choose your MPEG player using the Choose button.
6. Repeat the process for the audio/x-mpeg mimetype.

• This is not as hard to do as it sounds here!

Configuring Internet Explorer:

• I'm going to have to admit I don't know exactly how this is done, but it's something like what you do with Netscape.

authoring issues

So far, there three layers (types) of MPEG audio encoding:

• layer 1 - roughly 2:1 compression, used in MiniDisc players
• layer 2 - up to 6:1 before you start to hear a difference
• layer 3 - at 11:1 (128Kbits/sec), most listeners will say it sounds like a CD.
• These days, layer 3 players are just as common as layer 2, so I recommend that you encode in layer 3.

You can convert to MPEG at one of several bitrates.

• I recommend 128Kbits/sec for stereo CD-quality material
• You could go down to 80Kbits/sec for mono.
• Try various bitrates to find the ideal quality/compactness tradeoff point for your music.
• At 32Kbits or below, I would recommend using Shockwave, since the quality will be the same or better and with Shockwave you'll get streaming.

You need an encoder application to convert your uncompressed AIFF/sdII/WAV files to MPEG.

• My favorite Power Macintosh encoder is Mpecker Encoder
• I don't have a favorite Windows encoder.
• Encoders for many platforms can be found at MP3.COM

server issues

Server does not require special software.

security issues

There's nothing other than the copyright law stopping the user from using MPEG audio data in whatever awful ways he/she wants.